Hello
A ringing session at Stortons Pits today with John Woollett at the helm provided a nice sprinkling of birds with 51 captures of ten species. These were made up of a Woodpigeon, a Great Spotted Woodpecker, a Blackbird, six Reed Buntings, a Chaffinch, four Goldfinches, three Greenfinches, fifteen Great Tits, eighteen Blue Tits and a Treecreeper. Three of the Reed Buntings were birds ringed before with two of them initially ringed way back in 2014.
This evening news came through of an adult female Blackbird first ringed at Stortons in November 2016 being caught again in October 2018 but this time 412km away in Reddingbootpad, Vlieland in the Netherlands! This suggests that this bird is of continental origin and that she has wintered successfully in the UK during the last two winters. She may be back here again somewhere with the Dutch recapture site probably being a launch pad for another sortie across the North Sea!
The two Great Northern Divers were sitting together off the Sailing Club at Pitsford Reservoir this morning, with at least one of them flying around a great deal later in the morning suggesting it is either thinking about going or may already have slipped away...
Two Yellow-legged Gulls were in the same area (adult and second calendar year) and there were at least two Great White Egrets north of the causeway.
We did have a nice male Reed Bunting in the garden today, just before a young female Sparrowhawk caught a bird in the garden in the area where it had been! It was so quick it wasn't possible to say what she caught but there has been no sign of the bunting since!
Eight Bramblings were again on the seed in the Brampton Valley below Hanging Houghton.
Many congratulations to Dave Jackson who has yet again won the Birdguides Picture of the Week with an excellent image of a stunning adult male Sparrowhawk taken through glass! The story to go with the image is as follows...
'I arrived home and walked straight into the kitchen and noticed a Sparrowhawk perched low down about four metres from the back door. I slowly back-tracked to get my camera not expecting it to be there when I returned but fortunately he hadn't seen me otherwise he'd have been off like a shot.
I took a few shots from a distance and then knelt down and shuffled closer using a dining chair to hide behind and as a rest for my camera. It was clear from the full crop that the bird had enjoyed a sizeable meal and was in no hurry to depart. I daren't move even to check my images and camera settings and it finally flew off 35 minutes later when I moved to ease my aching knees! There was no sign of any feathers from its prey but I haven't seen the neighbour's cat for a few days now!'
The sacrifices we make to obtain 'that shot'!
Regards
Neil M
A ringing session at Stortons Pits today with John Woollett at the helm provided a nice sprinkling of birds with 51 captures of ten species. These were made up of a Woodpigeon, a Great Spotted Woodpecker, a Blackbird, six Reed Buntings, a Chaffinch, four Goldfinches, three Greenfinches, fifteen Great Tits, eighteen Blue Tits and a Treecreeper. Three of the Reed Buntings were birds ringed before with two of them initially ringed way back in 2014.
This evening news came through of an adult female Blackbird first ringed at Stortons in November 2016 being caught again in October 2018 but this time 412km away in Reddingbootpad, Vlieland in the Netherlands! This suggests that this bird is of continental origin and that she has wintered successfully in the UK during the last two winters. She may be back here again somewhere with the Dutch recapture site probably being a launch pad for another sortie across the North Sea!
The two Great Northern Divers were sitting together off the Sailing Club at Pitsford Reservoir this morning, with at least one of them flying around a great deal later in the morning suggesting it is either thinking about going or may already have slipped away...
Two Yellow-legged Gulls were in the same area (adult and second calendar year) and there were at least two Great White Egrets north of the causeway.
We did have a nice male Reed Bunting in the garden today, just before a young female Sparrowhawk caught a bird in the garden in the area where it had been! It was so quick it wasn't possible to say what she caught but there has been no sign of the bunting since!
Eight Bramblings were again on the seed in the Brampton Valley below Hanging Houghton.
Many congratulations to Dave Jackson who has yet again won the Birdguides Picture of the Week with an excellent image of a stunning adult male Sparrowhawk taken through glass! The story to go with the image is as follows...
'I arrived home and walked straight into the kitchen and noticed a Sparrowhawk perched low down about four metres from the back door. I slowly back-tracked to get my camera not expecting it to be there when I returned but fortunately he hadn't seen me otherwise he'd have been off like a shot.
I took a few shots from a distance and then knelt down and shuffled closer using a dining chair to hide behind and as a rest for my camera. It was clear from the full crop that the bird had enjoyed a sizeable meal and was in no hurry to depart. I daren't move even to check my images and camera settings and it finally flew off 35 minutes later when I moved to ease my aching knees! There was no sign of any feathers from its prey but I haven't seen the neighbour's cat for a few days now!'
The sacrifices we make to obtain 'that shot'!
Regards
Neil M
 |
Female Blackbird.   I can almost feel the pain in Dave's knees! |
No comments:
Post a Comment